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The woods were dark and silent; the only noise reaching his ears was that of the dead leaves that crunched under his feet as he walked, and his own too loud breath.
He thought he could see something moving in the shadows from the corner of his eye, now and then, but every time he turned his sight he was welcomed by the familiar and harmless figures of the trees and branches.
His cursed eye couldn’t pick up anything and he was beginning to think that all that walking around in the woods after sunset had just gotten to him. He never considered himself to be the paranoid type, but then again it had been around half an hour since he lost sight of the Finder.
He carried on through the darkness, walking the almost invisible path that would lead him to the outskirts of town where he would find a fragment of Innocence.
He stopped in his track when he heard a whisper to his right.
It was the whistling of the wind, threading through the woods and stirring the leaves; it was an owl hooting in the distance and a linnet chuckling. It was nothing else.
But he heard it a second time. It came from his left, and maybe he imagined it but it seemed to be a bit closer this time.
He turned around, looking for something, waiting for his eye to activate just so he knew what to seek out in the dark.
The whisper came again, a third and a fourth time; the sound was indecipherable, confused, and it suddenly exploded in a thousand murmurs. They reached him from this way and the other, all at once. It was everywhere; he could hear it in the trees.
He didn’t know what to look for nor what they were saying, and the darkness was getting thick and the night loud. The sounds tangled in the branches all around him in a cacophony of whispers.
He turned around when he saw a shadow passing by him in a flicker, too fast to be caught, and listened.
You, he thought he heard once. He couldn’t really make out the words. It sounded like his name, too, but he couldn’t be sure.
Al - …n.
He turned this way and then the other, squinting through the darkness. It had to be an Akuma but his eye wasn’t reacting in any way.
R…-d. C…n yo… s…e me?
The darkness was so thick now, he could barely see that branch in front of his face.
Se…e m…e. Yo...u see me.
He winced when the words got a bit clearer and held his breath, feeling a cold touch on his back.
Re…. See me. H…re.
The trees were closing on him, he could feel the twigs tingling his hair and neck. They felt like fingers, combing his hair and caressing his exposed skin. It was a cold touch.
Re…d.
He stilled.
Red, came the whisper again; he could hear it now. The dread squeezed his gut shut. He didn’t know what to think anymore.
I am h…e. Can…you see… m…? Be…nd yo..u.
And when he opened his mouth –to say what he wasn’t sure- the whisper became obvious.
Red, Red, Red. Murmured the voices in the shell of his ear, quick and breathless and deep. That branch right in front of his face didn’t look like a branch at all. It was moving, creeping its way to him. Slithering.
Suddenly it wasn’t a branch anymore.
Behind you.
He freezed, his voice unable to leave his lips, and now a hand was gripping his shoulder firmly.
Allen jumped and turned around, ready to fight off whatever it was, but was met with a concerned green eye and bright red hair.
«Hey, it’s me!» said Lavi, letting go of him quickly and raising his hands up in the air to show him he wasn’t a threat.
Allen looked at him, confused, and then rapidly glanced around to catch any suspicious movement.
«What… Where were you?» he asked, and cleared his throat once when his voice mildly shook. What had happened?
«I was looking for you.» Lavi said, arching an eyebrow. «I couldn’t find you, and the Finder was gone too. Thought you were both lost. I’ve been calling for you.» No, no you haven’t! How could that be you?
Allen gulped. This wasn’t right, was it? The whispers… something had been calling him.
«It said my name.» he said, almost without realising it. «The woods…»
«What?» asked Lavi, looking at him funnily. «What are you talking about? That was probably me?»
«No.» Allen whispered, staring at the twigs nearby; they looked just like normal twigs. That one big branch wasn’t to anywhere be seen either.
He abruptly realised the woods weren’t so dark anymore. The trees stood out in the harmless and perfectly normal dimness of the night, and the air was filled by the noises of the wildlife. The wind was a breathless whistle among the leaves and nothing more.
«Are you alright?» Lavi questioned him after a few seconds of silence. «You look like you’ve seen a ghost.»
Did he? He could feel the colour returning to his cheeks just then and the ghost-like feeling of fingers on his arms and back. He remembered the chill running up his spine not even a minute ago.
He did look like that, didn’t he? He could almost see his own pallor as if looking through a mirror.
Allen shook his head and breathed in deeply. «It’s nothing. I’m fine.» he uttered, letting go of the feeling of dread that had clouded his vision.
«Are you sur- Allen, wait up!» shouted Lavi when he briskly turned around and resumed walking as if nothing had happened.
«Thought I heard something, but it was probably the wind. Don’t worry about it, Lavi.» he said, and before his friend could say anything else he added: «Hurry up, or the Akuma will beat us to the Innocence!»
«Gee, Allen.» sighed Lavi, and quickly caught up to him. The leaves crackled under their feet as they walked. «Do you think the Finder is ahead of us?»
Allen was kind of glad he wasn’t asked to elaborate any further on what had happened. «Yeah.» He hoped so, anyway.
The sky seemed to be brightening a little with the approaching of sunrise; the woods were dark, but it was a normal kind of dark, and some bird was happily chirping on a twig. Everything was normal.
Allen absentmindedly wondered about the whispers, then forgot about them entirely.